Higher Love
by AndSoIWrite
Summary: Dean's about to become a father…until he's not. Pre-series.


**A/N: **This was originally going to be a Daddy Drabble but there was too much angsty brotp in it so I just made it a oneshot. Hope you enjoy.

**Warning: **There is death in this fic so if you don't do well with death or grief or tragedy, please don't read.

* * *

Dean Winchester was made of energy, of pure electricity that crackled around him like static. Cockiness didn't so much as flow through his twenty-five year old body as it pulsed within him, beating in time with his charming smile, eyes that brightened in a world where light wasn't always easy to find. Even though it was four-thirty in the morning and he was in an unfamiliar apartment building, he was bouncing on the balls of his feet. Ready.

An ivory handled gun was tucked into his waist band, a knife was slipped into the special strap he'd sewn into his favorite pair of boots, one of the two pairs of shoes he owned. It was this and a pair of sneakers because damn, he was a man and not about to show his bare feet to anyone. Well, just about anyone. He'd left the holy water and the salt in the Impala, and his muscles were loose even though he'd spent a few hours in the car. Four hours and twenty-two minutes to be exact.

He knocked twice because yeah, even though his heart was racing with anticipation, the sun wasn't even up yet and the occupant of the apartment was probably in bed. Like Dean should be. If he could have slept.

When the door finally did open, a crack at first and then wider, he stopped the bouncing but Dean Winchester was never really still so the person on the other side of the door could see him vibrating, see the twitch of fingers almost hidden by the long sleeves of Dad's old leather coat.

"Hiya, Sammy."

xxx

If Dean Winchester was energy, then Sam was the ocean, calm most of the time with a dangerous depth to him that sometime rose to the surface. Waves of shock and surprise rolled through him when his brother came to the door and he almost slammed it in Dean's face out of sheer reflex.

"What the fuck?"

"Watch your mouth," Dean said, grinning and slipping through the door, his left shoulder bumping into Sam's arm and sending a different kind of shock into the boy's body. A thousand volts just from a touch. He hadn't seen Dean in almost three years and yet here he was, rooting through the fridge, head stuck way inside. He withdrew with a container and a beer.

"Dean?"

"You're not even going to test me with holy water?" Dean asked, shaking his head. "Kinda disappointed in you, Sammy, not gonna lie." Sam watched him lift the edge of the container, sniff the contents, and then open it all the way. It was leftover pasta dish that Jess had made them for dinner that night, complete with cream sauce.

"It's Sam." For the first time, Dean's face marred with irritation.

"Whatever you say, Sammy." Sam found his legs again just as Dean started looking for silverware, pulling a fork out and going to town on the cold pasta.

"What are you doing here?" There was more suspicion than anything else to Sam's words; it was too weird for Dean to be absent for so long and then show up like…like this. All happy and shit. "Where's Dad?" Dean shrugged, spaghetti poking out of his mouth like fangs. He slurped it up and Sam grimaced, glad that it was one of the nights where Jess wasn't sleeping over. He had no idea how he would explain this one to her. And he didn't really want to explain his girlfriend to Dean either. That was one part of his life Sam wasn't willing to share.

"I can't just visit?"

"No." Dean frowned but it didn't last long. Sam had never seem him look so happy and as Dean took another bite – spitting out the piece of broccoli he'd accidentally scooped up – Sam started to notice other things.

How there was something soft about the way Dean held himself, as if his brother's sharp corners had been sanded down to rounded edges. There was lightness to the way his shoulder's moved as he opened the beer and the smile he wore when he glanced up to grin – again – at Sam. Something was different about that too; it wasn't just that Dean was older, because he was for sure, it had been three years after all, but there was an easy maturity about him.

"Dean, tell me what's going on or you have to leave. I mean it."

"Fine, fine," Dean said, leaning on the counter with both arms and then standing again, not able to stay still. "But you can't tell Dad." Sam's eyebrows disappeared right into his long bangs. He hadn't seen John since the night he walked out, hadn't spoken as much as a word to the man who told Sam to never come back. His head cocked, trying to search for the tease in Dean's tone but there was none. His brother's eyes still danced but there was a quiet seriousness to them now that matched with the maturity in a frighteningly adult way. Dean had always been the adult of the two of them but this was different somehow.

"Okay," Sam said, knowing that Dean's words were most likely a reflex than anything else, a remnant of childhood secrets. His eyes narrowed at a sudden thought. "Are you in trouble? Have you been gambling again?" Dean looked truly offended.

"What? No!"

"Don't look at me like that," Sam said. "Remember when you got into poker when you were seventeen and lost all our food money?" Dean winced and took a sip of beer.

"Yeah, I remember but I try not to. I haven't been gambling, Sammy, I swear."

"Then what? Drugs?"

"Why do you always have to jump to the worst possible thing?" Dean asked, that softness disappearing for a moment and the old Dean came out as he scowled. Ten minutes in and Sam was already judging him. Just like old times. Sam opened his mouth to retort that it was kind of a Hunter's job to dream up worse case scenario, but then he let it shut. No way was he getting dragged into this old cat and mouse stuff. Not here in his own apartment with Dean eating his own food that Sam's own girlfriend had made.

"Just tell me," he said. Dean glared at him for a second longer but then his expression changed and he ducked his head, tracing the countertop of the tip of his pointer finger. If Sam hadn't grown up with him, he would have sworn his brother looked _bashful._ Except that Dean Winchester had never looked bashful in his life.

"I met a girl," he said and this time the smile was different and it made sense to Sam now. The change in the Hunter, the extra swagger Dean was carrying with every step.

"That's great, Dean!" Sam said. He was about to continue and tell Dean about Jess but Dean kept talking, almost speaking over Sam's praise.

"She's pregnant."

Time didn't stand still or slow down or anything like that but Sam swore that in that moment, as the words filtered into his brain and meaning sank into his bones, the air in the room changed. Where breathing had been second nature a moment before, now the oxygen felt thick and viscous as it traveled down to Sam's lungs.

"What?" he gasped.

"Yeah," Dean said and for some reason he didn't look all that upset. Embarrassed maybe, a little worried, sure, but not as upset as someone whose whole way of life had just been destroyed.

"God, Dean…jeez. _Shit._"

"I thought you'd be happy for me." Confusion seeped from the words like poison, connecting themselves to Dean's furrowed brown, the green of his eyes glinting. His beer forgotten, he had both palms flat down on the counter.

"Happy?" Sam asked. Happy about what? That his big brother's life was going to be turned upside down? That even though Dean was twenty-five, he was still a child. Twenty-five wasn't parent-age, was it?

"Yeah, happy." Questions spun in Sam's mind, kicked up by the whirlwind of emotion as he stared at his brother. Jeans, t-shirt, jacket, boots. The usual attire. He still looked like a Hunter.

"So you're keeping it?" Dean got that little smile on his face again, rubbed his jaw with one hand, which Sam thought was awfully John Winchester of him.

"Yeah, we're keeping it." Sam wanted to ask how this was going to work, who the girl was, where the girl was, he had a hundred questions that were ready to spring from his lips. Instead he said,

"You can't be a father." The hurt that flashed in his brother's eyes was enough to make Sam's stomach somersault painfully. He hadn't meant it to come out as harsh as it had but it was true. Dean couldn't be a father. The notion was ridiculous. He was all callused hands and Latin chants, just like Sam. God knew Sam wasn't having kids, no way was he bringing innocent children into this fucked up world. Dean should have known better.

"I raised _you_."

Dean's next words were quiet, not so much a reminder as an admission. It was with guilt that Sam watched his brother scribble something on the notepad by the phone and then Dean was clapping him on the shoulder and out the door.

Gone as quickly as he had come.

And it wasn't even dawn yet.

xxx

It took Sam five weeks and three days before he got up the nerve to see Dean again. The address Dean had left was shoved into one of Sam's law books under his book, a place Jess would never look. Not that she was looking for anything in the first place; she knew something was up but aside from asking if he was okay a few times, she left him alone and they moved on with their lives.

Except Sam couldn't, not all the way. He could only think about Dean and that smile, that somehow his brother had fallen in love with a person not even born yet and Sam thought that out of everything he had seen during his childhood, out of all the supernatural crap he'd dealt with, this was the most unbelievable.

And yet.

Dean was right. He had raised Sam, had bathed him and fed him and taught him how to add on his fingers and toes. He'd not only taught Sam how to shoot a gun but he'd spent countless afternoons helping Sam study in the library, freezing his ass off in a drafty auditorium while Sam practiced for debate club. He'd filled in the spaces where John was supposed to be.

The address led him North, away from the cities and closer to the rugged coast. Sam had been in California three years and he wasn't used to the ocean yet; that much open space made him nervous, anxious. He supposed it came from years of traveling and living in mostly landlocked states. Lucky for him, Jess didn't care for the ocean or beach either so the two of them tended to stay away with it.

The paper led him to an apartment building downtown, a respectable looking structure if not a little rough around the edges. He drove an '88 Oldsmobile that had no air conditioning but a decent cassette deck and he parked it three blocks away, preferring to walk around the town to get the feel for it. And – he wasn't lying to himself – to give him more time before he had to knock on Dean's door.

The walk was too short and then Sam was standing in front of Dean's apartment, the number 37 practically carved into the metal door and Sam was second-guessing if this place was actually respectable or if it just gave off the appearance of being so. Kind of like Dean.

It wasn't Dean who opened the door but a woman. Slender in the face with hair dark enough that Sam couldn't tell it was black or not.

"Can I help you?"

"Uh." But Sam couldn't focus because he was staring at her stomach and how it ballooned out under her shirt and wait, was that even her shirt because he could have sworn Dean had a flannel exactly like that. He watched a hand curve around the bump protectively.

"Can I help you?"

"Dean," Sam managed to get out. God, Dean's child was in this woman's stomach and it probably had little feet and hands and before Sam could stop himself, he wondered if the baby would look like him in any way.

"Sam?"

"Hey, Dean." Dean surprise didn't last nearly as long as Sam's had the last time they had seen each other. He opened the door wide, letting Sam come inside. The woman – Dean's girlfriend, Sam assumed – stood a little bit behind her boyfriend, peering at Sam with curiosity. She was Dean's kind of pretty, with large, chocolate eyes.

"This is Jill," Dean said after a stretch of silence in which everyone just shuffled their feet. The woman smiled at him.

"Hi." Her voice was warm and full and Sam though she was probably closer to his own age than Dean's.

"Hey," he said, giving her an awkward half-wave of two fingers before letting his gaze move back to Dean. "I – I just wanted to came and say I'm sorry. You know, for the other night."

"No problem, Sammy," Dean said, rocking back on his heels. "Come in and have a drink. Jill has some chili warming on the stove." Sam didn't miss the way that when the two turned to make their way to the kitchen, their bodies turned toward each other, how Dean's left arm slid out and easily settled itself around Jill's waist. When they stood together at the stove, the swell of her stomach pressed into his side.

Dean joined Sam at the table with two bowls of chili and two beers, sliding into the seat across from him with that easygoing grin. Jill set a plate of cornbread down and Dean grabbed the top square and crumbled it into his chili before digging in.

"I'll let you guys catch up," Jill said, squeezing Dean's shoulder, and disappearing down the hall.

"She seems…nice," Sam managed, twisting around in his chair to watch Jill go into a room at the end of the hallway; it clicked into place behind her.

"She's amazing," Dean said around a mouthful of food.

"Where'd you meet?" This time, Dean didn't rush to answer him.

"Don't you want your chili?" Sam picked up his spoon but didn't fill it. It felt like he'd been thrown into another dimension, as if he was living in an alternate life.

"How far along is she?" The dopey grin returned to Dean's face and he put down his spoon, leaning back in his chair.

"Thirty-six weeks. Almost there. Hey, you want to see the nursery?" Sam had no choice but to follow Dean down the hallway. He glanced into a bathroom and found it sparse but neat and clean. That seemed to be their style of living. There weren't many decorations around the apartment and the wallpaper was peeling at all corners but Dean assured him they would move into something better when they could afford it.

"Anyway, we wanted to get the baby's room done first," Dean said. "Then I'm going to fix up the rest of the place."

"Where are you getting the money?" Sam asked, knowing all too well how John and Dean usually put cash in their pockets. Sam had joined the game of hustling at a young fourteen. But you couldn't raise a child on that, not really.

"Got a job," Dean said, chest broadening in pride. "Bartending a few streets over. It's not great but," he shrugged, "It'll do." He opened the door in front of them to a small room. Small but cozy. The walls were a light green and a dark wooden crib was along one wall, with a matching changing table and rocking chair in the corner opposite.

"I'm building a bookshelf," Dean said, suddenly looking shy in a way Sam hadn't seen before. Not that he remembered, at least. The Dean in front was almost child-like in his oblivious happiness, somehow not seeing what Sam was seeing, that this couldn't possibly work out. I mean this was _Dean _they were talking about.

"What about Hunting?" Sam finally asked because it's been on his mind from day one, since the minute he learned Dean was going to be a father.

"What about it?"

"Well, are you going to give it up? Does Jill know? Hell, does _Dad_ know?"

"Keep your voice down," Dean hissed, shutting the door to the nursery. On top of the dresser was a stuffed yellow duck and Dean took it down and played with it as he sat in the rocking chair. "No, Dad doesn't know. And it's going to stay that way."

"So what, you just disappeared?" Sam said and groaned when Dean raised his eyebrows in the affirmative.

"Kind of. Dad and I haven't been getting along much so I went out on my own. Met Jill, then all this happened." He shrugged and was silent. The duck did a backflip in his hands. The soft material looked so out of place next to the roughened hands that held it but for the first time Sam could see it. He saw Dean with a little baby, rocking it back to sleep in the middle of the night, tucking that duck into the corner of the crib. He'd probably hum Metallica or AC/DC and no doubt the child would learn to play the guitar if Dean had anything to say about it.

"What do you think, Sammy?"

"I – I don't know, Dean," Sam said, squatting down in front of his brother. "This is huge." Dean raised his eyes to meet Sam's.

"I know. But this could be it."

"Be what?"

"You know, my way out. You had Stanford and I thought I wanted to be a Hunter but I want this instead. A family." He gave Sam a sheepish look. "More of a family."

"I'm behind you then," Sam said, feeling a flutter of something under his ribs. He wasn't sure if Dean having a child was the right thing or not but the least he could do was support his brother. After all, Dean had spent almost all his childhood and then some taking care of Sam. Maybe he could raise a child. Maybe Sam could help.

xxx

The baby came early. Not by much, just a couple weeks, and at first, Sam didn't even get the call because he was in class and Jess had the cellphone the two of them shared because she was supposed to be working late. He only found out after he came in and threw his books onto his bed, scooping up a handful of peanuts and shoving them in his mouth before spotting the blinking red light on the answering machine.

"Sam? Hey, it's me. Uh, Dean. Listen, I'm at the hospital. Jill's in labor and – and they think something might be wrong. Just wanted to keep you updated."

Sam almost choked on the peanuts in his rush to dial Dean's number, holding the phone in between his cheek and shoulder as he practically dove to empty his backpack and started shoving clothes inside.

"Dean?"

"Sam!"

"Sorry, I was in class, I just got the message. How's she doing, how's the baby?" Dean's voice was hoarse, as if he had a cold. Or if he'd been crying. But Dean didn't cry. Maybe it was the connection.

"They're doing okay," Dean said. "Jill is fine, she's doing amazing."

"What about the baby?" Sam said, sending a last glance over the apartment to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything.

"They're not sure," Dean whispered.

"What?" Sam said. "What do you mean? How can't they be sure? Don't they have like a million tests they can do?" Sam had been reading up on babies in the last couple weeks, seeing that he was going to be an uncle and all. Jess was excited too. The time of them spent the last weekend driving around to different garage sales and searching out baby toys and accessories. They couldn't get clothes because the parents-to-be didn't want to know the sex, which Sam totally didn't understand but apparently Jill was getting a little "testy" according to Dean.

"It's complicated. The heartbeat isn't as strong as they'd like it to be but it's not dangerous. They don't want to do surgery unless they have to."

"I'm getting in my car, okay? I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Okay."

"I'm going to hang up so I can leave, okay?"

"Okay." But Dean didn't sound okay and that's what Sam was thinking when he locked up the apartment and the Oldsmobile stuttered to life. He'd call Jess from the hospital; she wouldn't be home until late tonight anyway.

Sam called from a payphone at a gas station when he was about an hour out.

"Sammy?"

"Yeah, it's me."

"Where are you?"

"Getting closer. Probably an hour or so. How's the baby? Was it born?" Dean laughed into the phone and Sam thought it was the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard.

"Not yet. But the heartbeat is holding steady."

"That's great," Sam said, automatically smiling. He couldn't believe that he would soon be holding his little niece or nephew.

"Yeah, hey, Jill's calling me back into the room so I'm gonna go."

"Okay, good luck!"

Sam spent the rest of the drive wondering if the baby would be a boy or a girl. If it was a boy he would make sure that he got the life Sam and Dean never had as children. He could play baseball and football and maybe Dean would even be the coach of his little league. Maybe the boy would be a musician or a writer. Sam could teach him to love literature and the names of all the Greek Gods and old warriors. He'd take his nephew out camping and hiking and teach him how to find the constellations.

If the baby was a girl…well, Sam wasn't sure what he would do with a niece but a little girl might not be so bad. She might like dogs or reading. She'd take ballet and make Dean take her out to lunch wear a pink tutu and sparkly shoes. Or maybe she'd be a tomboy and be into sports and he'd take her camping and hiking and teach her how to find the constellations.

xxx

Dean had seen some stuff in his twenty-five years but looking between the legs of his girlfriend as she gave birth brought the word gross to a whole new level. Jill was pushing and swearing and pushing some more and had his hand clasped in hers and honestly, Dean had never wanted to ditch a Hunt before but this was something else entirely. Then alarms were going off and Jill had stopped pushing.

"What?" she screamed, flinging her head to this side and that, trying to get someone to answer her, her dark hair matted to her neck in sweat. "What's wrong?" she begged Dean and he didn't have an answer. He was watching more doctors rush into the room and nurses hovering and then one very calm voice saying,

"We need you to push. The baby's heartbeat stopped."

Dean felt his insides turn to ice, the adrenaline from the moment before skidding to a stop and turning around as his muscles locked. Jill was gaping at the doctor, her hand limp in Dean's.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "Dean, what did he mean?"

But Dean couldn't answer because he was watching the heart monitor and the flat line streaming across it and holy shit that was his child with no heartbeat. Flesh and blood of Dean that wasn't working right. This was all his fault.

Jill was pushing again, coached on by the nurses because Dean had slipped away from her, watching from the sidelines. He watched as the head slid free and Jill cried out and just like that, there was a baby.

And then there wasn't.

He saw a head of dark hair, pale, slimy skin and then the baby was taken to a corner of the room and a wall of scrubs was blocking Dean's view. He took a step, almost magnetized to that corner, but Jill called out for him.

"Dean!" He was walking through water, couldn't hear the voices around him, his vision narrowing. His own father flashed before his eyes, John Winchester shrugging and saying, "I told you so."

"Dean, the baby isn't crying! Why isn't he crying?"

"I – I don't know," Dean stuttered. She was still sweaty but her head was against the pillow, eyes half-closed against overwhelming exhaustion. Dean wanted to run, to be out of there, this was not his world. He wanted the Impala and the weight of his gun in his hand. He wanted Sam.

"Go see," Jill urged, and so he did. He walked his heavy feet and heavy heart over to the flurry of activity and peered over a shorter nurse.

There was the baby, laid out on the table with the tiniest oxygen mask he'd ever seen over its nose and lips. Lips that were too blue.

"It's a boy," one of the nurses told him, putting a gloved hand on his bicep. He flinched away when he saw blood splattered on her gown. How stupid because Dean Winchester didn't cringe when he saw blood.

"He's not crying," Dean said, stupidly.

"He's not breathing," the nurse corrected him. "There's was a knot in the umbilical cord. It tightened during labor and cut off his oxygen supply. We're trying everything we can, Mr. Winchester."

Sam. He needed Sam. He tore his gaze away from the unmoving newborn and left the room, turning left. And somehow, if by magic, Sam was there.

"Dean!"

Sam was there and he was wearing sweatpants and a flannel shirt, his feet looking huge in a pair of Timberland boots. The smile dropped from his face as he took in Dean's ashen skin, the haunted look in his wide eyes.

"Dean?"

"Sam," Dean mumbled, stopping short of his brother by a foot even though he wanted to go all the way, to bury his head into Sam's chest because Sam was taller than him now and he could do that. He never wanted to go back into that hospital room again, never wanted to see something as small and helpless as a dead baby.

_His_ dead baby.

"Dean, what happened?"

"A knot," Dean said, almost whispered the words. He cleared his throat and with the grunt came a clearer mind. His eyes lifted to Sam's and there he saw confusion and worry. Apprehension. "There was a knot in the umbilical cord. He's not breathing." Sam's face broke, shattered in the same way Dean's had just minutes ago and somehow it was a relief to see someone else breaking in this way. That it wasn't just Dean who wasn't strong enough.

"Dad?" Dean turned instinctively because he was a dad now, that was his name. The same nurse as before motioned him back into the room. Sam followed and there was no question about the addition to the room.

"Is he…?" The nurse shook her head and Dean didn't ask again.

Jill was lying in the bed with a bundle in her arms. A few of the nurses had cleared out so the room seemed bigger. There was more air in it than there was before.

"Come here," Jill said. She was crying but silently and the tears and sweat mixed together on her cheeks. Glowing but in the wrong way. Dean followed her crooked finger but his steps were halting. "Isn't he beautiful?"

The baby – a boy – had been cleaned up and Dean saw that he really was beautiful. His cheeks were chubby, his eyelashes dark and long enough to almost brush against his cheeks with his eyes closed. He looked as if he was sleeping.

"Yes," Dean breathed. Against all odds, a smile tugged at his lips as he touched the tip of one finger to the baby's nose, the skin impossibly soft beneath his soft touch.  
"He looks like you," Jill said. Maybe it was true and maybe it wasn't but the words warmed Dean just the same and he felt his own tears leave his eyes.

"Sammy, look," he said and Sam, who had been hanging back, stepped forward. There was an intake of breath when he saw the child and Sam's heart exploded in his chest. One look and he knew he'd never feel this way about another person again. If a Hunter had walked in and saw Sam and Dean Winchester staring down at the baby in awe, he might not have recognized the brothers.

"Do you have a name?" Sam asked. Jill nodded and looked up at Dean.

"Robert Paul," Dean said and Sam smiled. It was perfect.

Somehow, the moment was both beautiful and terrible as the life of another Winchester started and ended.

xxx

Two weeks later Sam was watching a movie with Jess when the phone rang. She uncurled her body from her spot against him and he stood to stop the ringing, annoyed that someone was calling this late.

"Hello?"

"Sam? It's Jill."

There had been a funeral that first week and it was small but peaceful. Dean hadn't cried since the hospital, his face turning the stone every time Robert was addressed. Sam hadn't heard from either one of them since and Jess had told him to give the couple their space.

"Is he gone?" Sam asked, walking out of the room and sitting down on his bed. A hand scraped through his long hair. He'd known this was coming, knew that Dean would disappear, that there wasn't anything tying Dean to California anymore.

"He's not coming back, is he?" Jill asked, a trembling undertone making her words skitter over the phone and into his ear. Sam's heart broke all over again.

"Probably not," Sam said. He owed her honesty.

"Okay," Jill was all she said and the phone clicked off. Sam stared at it, seeing his brother and the baby and then just his brother. Driving off in the Impala, music too loud, foot too heavy on the gas.

Once upon a time, Dean Winchester had a chance of a normal life.

And then the fairytale ended. As all fairytales tend to do.


End file.
